Nice hotel. Excellent view of downtown, the Chicago River, the John Hancock building, and the Chicago Sun Times. The room was huge and still smelled of new carpet and fresh paint. And it was even a smoking room! Check-in time was 3pm but they let me check in at 11am if I was willing to take a smoking room. I accepted and the hotel is still so new after the remodel that I don't think anyone had smoked in there yet.
The Sony stereo was nice to have (however it did not have an MP3 player as advertised on the website). The room had very nice, modern, and trendy color schemes and furniture. The bathroom was good-sized and very clean and nice. A fully stocked refridgerator and snack drawer was cool, but I am sure very expensive so I avoided eating or drinking any of it.
My only complaints--the room's doors do slam pretty loudly when they close. So starting in the morning the hallways are pretty loud and it was difficult to sleep in very late peacefully. The beds were closest to the door (not sure why they laid the room out that way with so much space), so the noise from the hall was impossible to avoid. If I had designed the room I would have put the beds over by the windows and the chairs and desk by the door. There really was no dresser, which was strange for so many other amenities. There were three available small drawers in the entertainment center but that was it.
The elevators were pretty slow and got really stuffed with people. We were on the 35th floor and I believe there were about 40+ floors. There were two elevators for about 20 of the floors and two for the other 20. With 20 or so rooms on each floor, you can imagine that they did get backed up--especially around check-in/check-out time.
The staff was friendly and professional. The lobby was very nice and trendy, but it could have used some brighter colors. It was pretty dark in that the walls and carpet was all black. However it was very clean and modern. The maids did leave us alone when we hung our No! (Do Not Disturb) sign on the door, which I always like. Some of the television channels did not come in the greatest either. MTV did not come in well enough to watch, but others were fine.
All in all, I got a special rate here ($124 a night) but doubt I would pay the full rate for a room here. If you can get a good deal, definitely check it out. The view is great. But I would not pay the $250-300 a night rates I have seen on some of the travel web sites. At that price I would stay at the Drake, Wyndham, or Ritz-Carlton.